Teresa Amabile, professor at Harvard Business School is well known for her work in creativity, including books “Creativity in Context” and “Growing Up Creative.” She presented her new work on Time Pressure and Creative Thinking in Organizations.
The study was a large, longitudinal study of 177 people on 22 teams working on mostly product development projects in 7 companies in 3 industries. People responded to Daily Questionnaires that measured current time pressure and daily events.
Results: More info: Interview and Article
The Experience of Time Pressure
-- Events that involved tight deadlines or workload increases were associated with feelings of greater time pressure that day and the next day.
-- The number of hours people worked increased as a function of daily time pressure, and increased at an even faster rate at high levels of time pressure.
-- Generally, people in these organizations experienced high time pressure (an average of about 5 on the 7-point scale).
-- People reported feeling more creative on time-pressured days
Time Pressure and Creative Thinking
-- The higher the time pressure on a given day, the lower the likelihood of creative thinking that day. Creative thinking is 45% less likely at the highest level of time pressure.
-- The higher the time pressure on a given day, the lower the likelihood of creative thinking the next day and the day after that. A time pressure increase of 1 standard deviation is associated with a 19% drop in the probability of creative thinking the next day.
-- The higher the time pressure at the beginning of each half of the project, the lower the average level of creative thinking during the following half.
When asked, Professor Amabile, stated that the study had not separated number of simultaneous projects from general time pressure but agreed that too many projects could easily block the type of subconscious thinking that often leads to ideas that show up unexpectedly in the shower or upon awakening.
“The more people in a meeting, the more likely that participants will check out.”
Creative Thinking/Time Pressure Matrix
High Time Pressure with Creative Thinking – On a Mission – people are focused and protected, have a sense of doing important work.
High Time Pressure with no Creative Thinking – On a Treadmill – people are not focused, distracted, fragmented activities, many more meetings with multiple people than single individuals.
Low Time Pressure with Creative Thinking – On an expedition – collaboration with one person rather than multiple people, exploring rather than problem solving.
Low Time Pressure without Creative Thinking – On auto pilot – low level of collaborative work, more meetings with multiple people, little encouragement for creativity.
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